Saturday, 16 July 2011

Islam versus Buddhism: Is The Fate of the Infidels Tied to the Buddhas?By Janet Levy

One of the ancient Buddhas destroyed as 'idols'

"No fanfare and little notice marked the 10th anniversary earlier this year of the destruction of the 1,500-year-old Bamiyan Buddhas. These 6th-century stately statues carved into sandstone cliffs in central Afghanistan included one of the tallest standing Buddhas in the world. On March 12, 2001, the 180- and 121-foot Buddhas crumpled under dynamite set off by the Taliban -- the Islamist militia group ruling Afghanistan from 1996 through late 2001. Mullah Omar, the leader of the Al Qaeda-supported movement, deemed the statutes idolatrous graven images insulting to Islam and ordered their destruction. Other Buddhist images, including statues and relief carvings as well as ancient Sikh gurdwaras and Hindu temples, were also destroyed by the Islamic terrorists belonging to the Taliban Movement.

This kind of cultural destruction has been part and parcel of Islam since its inception. According to Dr. Bill Warner, founder of the Center for the Study of Political Islam, "Political Islam has annihilated every culture it has invaded or immigrated to by destroying the host culture."

Dr. Warner cites the extinction of a once-Christian Middle East, Turkey, and North Africa, and a Zoroastrian Persia, as a result of Islamic jihad. He also includes the decimation of Hindus and Buddhists as well. All told, he totals more than 270 million "nonbelievers," including Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Africans, and Jews, who have died in Islamic massacres since the birth of Islam 1400 years ago.

Prior to the Islamic conquests, which began in the 7th century, Afghanistan was primarily Hindu with significant minorities of Buddhists and Jains...

...By the 11th century, the region that includes modern-day Afghanistan had been Islamized and the remaining Hindus and Buddhists were stripped of their legal and social rights and relegated to dhimmi status. This meant they were required to exist under shariah or Islamic doctrine and forced to pay the jizya, a tax payable to Muslims to guarantee protection against forced conversion or death.

When the Taliban came to power in 1996, Hindu and Buddhist minorities were forced to identify themselves by wearing yellow badges and the women were required to wear burkas. The destruction of the Buddhas was yet another attempt to demoralize and humiliate Hindus and Buddhists and destroy their culture...

Understanding Sharia and Jihadist attitudes towards Buddhists
To put this cultural destruction in context, we need to remember that Islam, by its very nature, is obsessed with hatred against non-Muslims and their culture. This attack is what's known as a 'Dominance Crime'.

V. S. Naipaul, the Nobel prize-winning author, summed it up precisely in 'Beyond Belief', when he wrote:

"Hatred of non-Moslems is the pivot of Islamic existence. It not only declares all dissidents as the denizens of hell, but also seeks to ignite a permanent fire of tension between Moslems and non-Moslems; it is far more lethal than Karl Marx´s idea of social conflict which he hatched to keep his theory alive."

'Dhimmitude is the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians. Dhimmis, "protected people," are free to practice their religion in a Sharia regime, but are made subject to a number of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the Qur'an's command that they "feel themselves subdued" (Sura 9:29). This denial of equality of rights and dignity remains part of the Sharia, and, as such, are part of the legal superstructure that global jihadists are laboring to restore everywhere in the Islamic world, and wish ultimately to impose on the entire human race.

If dhimmis complained about their inferior status, institutionalized humiliation, or poverty, their masters voided their contract and regarded them as enemies of Islam, fair game as objects of violence. Consequently, dhimmis were generally cowed into silence and worse. It was almost unheard-of to find dhimmis speaking out against their oppressors; to do so would have been suicide. For centuries dhimmi communities in the Islamic world learned to live in peace with their Muslim overlords by acquiescing to their subservience. Some even actively identified with the dominant class, and became strenuous advocates for it.

Spearheaded by dhimmi academics and self-serving advocacy groups, that same attitude of chastened subservience has entered into Western academic study of Islam, and from there into journalism, school textbooks, and the popular discourse. One must not point out the depredations of jihad and dhimmitude; to do so would offend the multiculturalist ethos that prevails everywhere today. To do so would endanger chances for peace and rapprochement between civilizations all too ready to clash.

But in this era of global terrorism it must be said: this silence, this distortion, has become deadly. Before 9/11 it was easy to ignore and whitewash dhimmitude, but the atrocities changed the situation forever. In jihads throughout history, untold millions have died. Tens of millions have been uprooted from their homes. Tens of millions have been stripped of their cultural identity. To continue to gloss over the destruction wrought by jihad ideology and its attendant evil of dhimmitude is today to play into the hands of jihadists, who have repeatedly vowed to dhimmify the West and destroy any recalcitrant elements.

While jihadist groups, even with their global diffusion, are not strong enough to realize this goal by themselves, they have a potent and destructive ally, a genuine fifth column, in the dhimmi academics and dhimmi journalists they have recruited in the West. They have succeeded in confusing millions in the West into mistaking honesty and truthfulness for bigotry, and self-defense for oppression"

Update on Jihad in Burma (Myanmar)

"There is no liquid loved by Allah more than the liquid of blood. Whether you do it by the lamb, or you do it by a Serb, you do it by a Jew, you do it by any enemies of Allah, that drop of blood is very dear."- Islamic Sermon